If there’s one unifying factor for our divided planet, it’s that people all around the world love celebrations of joy. People in every nation love to join in celebrating so many joyous occasions. We love births, weddings, graduations, promotions, anniversaries – basically any reason to celebrate our life achievements in great joy and togetherness.
What ALL people equally dislike is bad news. And Ash Wednesday is bad news for too many people. Rather than celebrating a life achievement, Ash Wednesday is about the subjects totally out humanity’s control: nasty topics like sin and death. And death is typically received as bad news rather than good. No one ever leaves the doctor’s office excited about their upcoming death. Death is something people avoid at all costs, even people of the Christian faith.
Ash Wednesday therefore is a total reversal of humanity’s normal joyful celebration of life! “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” It’s not just an admission of death but also an acknowledgment of the cause of death: sin. In fact, whether we admit it or not, we all have this same life-ending and inherited-disease called sin. As Paul’s letter to the Roman church explains, sin came into the world because of one man and because of that sin, death. In Ash Wednesday we all get to say, “gee thanks Adam for giving us all an unavoidably contagious and deadly disease called sin.”
This makes Ash Wednesday what one might call a ‘total Debbie Downer.’
Most of humanity avoids death and lives as if they are totally invincible and never going to die! Folks simply don’t want to hear about their confirmed final appointment. They’d rather go on leading lives of make believe. It’s like the old story of two friends who both loved baseball, so they made a pact. Whoever died first would come back after death to let the other know if there’s baseball in heaven. So, one of them dies and comes back to his friend…Michael, Michael, wake up, I’ve got good news and bad news! To which the living friend says, give me the good news first. So, the dead guy says, Michael, the good news is there’s baseball in heaven. So, the living guy says, Baseball in heaven, that’s great! What could possibly be the bad news? To which the dead guy replies, Michael, you’re pitching next Friday…..
Christian people, of course, are generally called to view all of this quite differently. While we rarely ask God the right questions in our prayers, we can at least start out by asking the Lord how He’s going to help us with this thing called death.
In God therefore we learn even though death is unavoidable, we need to die in order to be resurrected. For there is the great paradox: we must first die in order to live forever. – similar to John 12:24 – Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
For too many of us, Ash Wednesday and the observances of Lent are depressing because they appear to be a doorway into practicing a life of gloom in order that we might live.
For example, think about the Apostle Paul’s own words in 1 Corinthians 9:27 – But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (Where’s the celebration of joy in keeping our bodies under control?!? Hello!?!)
It all goes back to the resurrection principle. In order for Paul to live, he had to die daily. And this is most certainly true when you realize only dead people get resurrected.
To get back to the sport of baseball for a moment, there is another important part of baseball that connects totally with Ash Wednesday and Lent: it’s called “spring training”.
Think about it – the players all come to a place of needing to confess that they’ve not been living right since the previous October in thought, word, and deed – by what they’ve done and by what they’ve left undone. They’ve had too much too drink, to eat, and barely exercised. True, some of the players are worse than the others, but by February, they’re ALL out of shape and conditioning. So, what do they do? Admit their need of complete change, promise to go off in a totally new direction in their lives and start putting their old bodies to death through exercise and diet in order to be born again as Hall of Famers.
Sound familiar? Therefore, Ash Wednesday and Lent are a type of spring training for Christians!
On the surface the introspection and deep repentance of Ash Wednesday and Lent appear to be harsh, horrible works, but both are really meant to be Christ working through us. He puts us to death each day in order that we be resurrected alive again in Christ Jesus.
Even the disciple Peter argued against this plan of operation in Jesus’ life because of the human repulsion towards death. Compare if you will the two sections found in Matthew 16.
One minute, Jesus is praising Peter for his recognition of His Messiahship – “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah”
However, when Jesus immediately announces He’s going to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed, Peter cries out against the plan and Jesus has to call Peter “Satan” instead of blessed by the Lord.
Why? Because once again it’s the human rejection of death in order that life may come.
Even today too many believers reject the faith traditions by which we pick up our own crosses and follow Jesus into death in order to be raised again. How many of your Christian friends neglect the rich traditions of the Church as Ash Wednesday and Lent? Why? Because as the very wise theologian Thomas Aquinas recalled, most people are more enamored with the 4 main idols of life – pride, power, possessions, and pleasure.
People would rather serve their precious idols than understand that in order to be resurrected you first must die.
Instead, Jesus calls each of us to pick up our crosses and follow Him into a death of crucifixion, which was a Roman death sentence meant for rebels and slaves; degrading and never-ending.
And that means daily repentance and daily acts of righteousness – loss of life to our appetites that resurrection life may follow.
Think about it this way:
The reason we seemingly “give up” things for Lent is in reality to focus on replacing those nasty
behaviors that focus only on the self and substitute behaviors that put God and others first.
Ashes instead of clean faces, rosy cheeks, and fake smiles masking our true emotions.
Spiritual reading instead of mindless, brain numbing entertainment via streaming and smartphones.
Prayers for others instead of our own droning on about our life goals and plans and dreams.
Giving special offerings to aide others when we’d rather spend extravagantly on ourselves.
Fasting from food or drink when we’d rather gorge ourselves silly.
Good works for others when we’d rather invest time in our own recreation and hobbies!
As they should, following through on any of these practices, hurts! because these substitutions are the nails of our crosses that we might die and live again. We’d much rather waste our lives on hobbies, smartphones and various appetites. But in allowing those habits to live, we rob ourselves of the beauty of death.
Again, we deny our return to the dust because we think we can choose our own destiny.
This Lent, may you really walk with Jesus in His destiny on the way to Jerusalem, carrying your own cross. With more than today’s ashes, may you walk the walk of repentance and truly lay down your life and pick up the cross and follow Him. May you wear today’s ashes without wiping them off, that you may proclaim for all to see, “yes, I am dying” and not hide the truth of your real life’s path.
AMEN.
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